https://habr.com/en/company/mailru/blog/478400/

• Mail.ru Group corporate blog
• Abnormal programming
• Sport programming
• Entertaining tasks
• Artificial Intelligence

The AI Cup community and Mail.ru Group in collaboration with Codeforces.com invite you to the real battle! Get ready for the sleepless nights and calloused hands — take part in Russian AI Cup, which is one of the most challenging and vivid artificial intelligence programming competitions in the world. Believe us, managers of this madness did their best to create the game you'd want to play.

To become part of the competition, you need Internet access, computer, creativity, and enthusiasm for being a part of this extraordinary Cup. By the way, you might need some coffee. Welcome!

Annually, since 2012, we are racking our brains to come up with an idea for the next competition. You can find useful links at the end of the article, as I won't be describing previous championships here.

We've looked through the forum and every single request of our participants we managed to find, so our team has made a secret decision to create a platform game. During the year, we've kept the community in the dark without telling you about the new task. We were tortured, but nobody gave in.

Recently, we have launched beta testing, and we are ready to show you what we have created! So, let's start! The code name of our new competition is CodeSide.

CodeSide 2019

Every participant is to program artificial intelligence (or strategy) to control a team of units in a particular word. In each game, you are to compete against another player's strategy.

There won't be much physics in the game. We don't even think physics is essential for this competition. For example, in this game, units don't have acceleration. We wanted to do our best, so the participants could focus on creating smart strategies instead of struggling with physics.

Units can run, jump, and fall. Any entity can block the action, so you better watch out. All entities of the game are rectangular.

The game world is two dimensional and can change according to the level. The architecture of the game consists of walls, platforms, ladders, and jump pads. At the beginning of each game, units are placed on their spawn points; they have no weapon and no advantage over other units. Moreover, loot boxes randomly spawn on the levels containing weapons, health packs, and mines.

To win, you have to aim and shoot enemies. Each weapon type has constant parameters, such as:

• Magazine size,
• Fire rate,
• Reload time,
• Min and max spread,
• Recoil,
• Aim speed,
• Bullet parameters,
• Explosion parameters.

Moreover, there are varying parameters, such as:

• Magazine (ammo left in a current magazine),
• Spread (current spread),
• Fire timer (time until next shot),
• Last angle (last aiming angle).

Our bullets are extraordinary. First of all, they're squares; also, if explosion parameters are present, an explosion square is created, dealing damage to all units. Actually, all entities are rectangular, so the model is quite simple.

If you want to cause damage later, then you can plant a mine. Mines are stored in inventory and can be planted at any time.

Quick start

You can find the documentation which can help you to join the battle within a couple of minutes on the championship website. On the website, you can read the Rules section, download the language pack, and the LocalRunner app, which allows you to run and test games locally on your computer.

You can use any programming languages: C++, C#, D, Go, Java, Kotlin, Python, Ruby, Rust. We can add another programming language if you need one. Besides, you can download sample strategies in the GitHub repository or on the website.

Community

Join us on Telegram! We have a chat and a channel where we communicate and help each other.

Championship schedule

1. Beta testing: November 27 — December 7
   During the beta testing changes to the balance sheet can be made, errors fixed, and infrastructure optimized. Results of beta testing do not affect other results. The rating is reset before the Sandbox.
2. Sandbox: December 7 — 14
   Based on the results of the Sandbox, top-rated strategies are selected to advance to Round 1.
3. Round 1: December 14 — 15
   Top-rated strategies advance to the Round 2
4. Round 2: December 21 — 22
   Top-rated strategies advance to the Finals
5. Finals: December 28 — 30
   Announcement of the champions and prizewinners.

Prizes

All winners of the Finals get good New Year gifts:

1st place — MacBook Pro 15"
2nd place — MacBook Pro 13"
3rd place — Apple iPad
4th place — Samsung Gear S3 or Apple Watch S3
5th place — WD My Cloud 6 TB.
6th place — WD My Passport Ultra 4TB

Moreover, the top six winners of the Sandbox will get WD My Passport Ultra 2TB. Every participant of the Round 2 gets a t-shirt, every finalist gets a hoodie.